Ampere offers glimmer of hope for Europe's original scripted market
MIA: The days of Peak TV might be over but there are new opportunities emerging – or rather older ones returning – such as content licensing, scripted crime and the importance of public broadcasters, Ampere Analysis’ Guy Bisson told MIA delegates in Rome this week.
Guy Bisson speaking at this week’s Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo
Guy Bisson of media analyst firm Ampere Analysis has offered Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo (MIA) delegates here in Rome reasons for cautious optimism, signposting a gentle recovery in the scripted production sector in Europe, the US and beyond, but also significant shifts to the production ecology.
On the opening day of the 10th edition of MIA’s international coproduction and networking event in Rome, Bisson’s scene-setting presentation didn’t pull its punches, with the scripted market remaining in a downturn, but with trend data showing some “bright spots”.
Charting the extraordinary cycle of events of the past five years, where an era of so-called ‘Peak TV’ in scripted commissioning, led by the global streamers, was hammered by successive events from the pandemic, then streaming saturation, the US writers’ strike and waning investor confidence in the streaming business model itself. This led to inevitable cuts in staffing and original commissioning and the latest move to diversify those streamers’ subscription-based business models and income streams through advertising tiers.
Advertising rather than subscriptions is now driving growth in the industry and will boost streaming income by 20%, which means “a boost to revenue and more money to spend on content,” said Bisson.
But it also signals a shift in content strategy, which is now focused on retaining viewers and subscribers instead of acquiring new ones. “It’s not about the big punch in the face that gets the customer to subscribe. It’s about keeping them on-platform and keeping them coming back week after week after week,” said Bisson, highlighting the death of the box-set in favour of more staggered content drops, and content commissioning activities more akin to channels and broadcasters, including more unscripted, reality, crime and longer series to encourage more audience engagement.
Ampere’s analysis of what global streamers have been and are currently commissioning indicates a retreat from more expensive areas of scripted content, notably sci-fi, action-adventure in favour of genres like crime, comedy and romance.
Crime is the stand-out winner, accounting for up to 40% of commissioned scripted content across streamers, broadcasters, producers and distributors in Western Europe in the first half of 2024. While public broadcasters, streamers and pay TV operators are all driving that commissioning activity, it’s public broadcasters leading the pack with as much as 50% of all scripted crime commissioning, followed by the streamers.
Ampere’s analysis also indicates a withdrawal from children’s original content by streamers, who have turned to licensing kids’ content instead. “I used to call children’s content one of the holy trinity of streaming content strategies alongside comedy and drama – they were the three main areas driving the streaming business as it evolved and grew into a global business,” said Bisson.
Other trends include a greater shift towards renewable shows. “Risk-taking leaves the market when times are hard and renewables become more important relative to new commissions,” said Bisson, adding that streamers expect more bangs for their bucks nowadays.
Attendees gather for MIA in Rome this week
“That means increasing pressure on production budgets and on spend and the move away from some of the risk-taking that characterised those early years of streaming growth. The new reality is content spend growth is not coming back. We’ve been through peak TV, and we’re not going to go back to those levels.”
In terms of current opportunities, however, licensed content has been rising fast to fill that gap. While in January 2020, 60% of Netflix’s top 10 shows were Netflix originals. In July 2024, 60% were licensed acquisitions. “Licensing has re-emerged as a serious opportunity, with 12% growth, while original production spend has flattened,” said Bisson. However, he called it a “very specific opportunity”, concentrated around high-quality drama.
As for a wider recovery, the US market remains “the biggest, the most valuable market in the world by orders of magnitude,” said Bisson. There are shoots of recovery and slight growth, although commissioning activity in the US market remains at its lowest levels since the pandemic.
For markets outside US, Bisson said the streaming trend towards internationalisation and globalisation of scripted commissioning activity, have led to strong peaks for Europe and Asia, where streamers are looking for further growth. Europe and Asia now account for more than 65% of all Netflix’s and Amazon Prime Video’s new commissioning activity.
Top genres include super-hot cyber-crime, followed by comedy and drama, notably historical, military and conflict-based themes, plus sports and biography, all accounting for the lion’s share of commissioning activity in Europe.
However, the exec also had words of caution for non-English-language markets.
Greater risk aversion by streamers has led to pulling back on producing in “riskier” languages. While English and Spanish remain safe bets, all other European languages are down.
Ending on a positive note, Bisson added: “The worst cutbacks are over and the streamers are beginning to reach profitability, and that will begin the start of the turn-around where content is commissioned in Europe. Beyond Europe, global players are looking to Asia. And what does that mean? It means new coproduction opportunities with some of these emerging markets and opening up new partnerships and investment, as well as the opportunity for creative expansion.”
